The Three Golden Skills of Convention Game Mastering: Part One

Part One

What are three game-mastering skills I could work on to improve my next convention game? 

When I play at a convention, I try to learn from my game masters. Three critical skills that successful game masters have are social skills, organization skills, and presentation skills. Social skills make players comfortable and therefore primed to have a good game experience. Organization skills help game masters feel at ease as run a game for strangers. And presentation skills take a plain session and upgrade it to a memorable experience. 

Social Skills put your players at ease. 

I don’t know about everybody else, but for me, one of the most anxious parts of a convention game is not knowing who it is that I’m playing with. I always feel just a little bit of anxiety when I first approach the table and survey the people sitting there. After all, convention time is limited. Of all of the things that you could be doing at the convention at that moment, you chose to spend your time playing the game with these strangers. The quality of players sitting at the table really can make a difference in how you feel about the game session. In turn, it will color how you view the game master. 

Recognizing the importance of player interaction, a GM can do a lot of things to help players feel comfortable at the table. In turn, this will help the players prepare themselves for the game. One could say that this is the first goal that a GM has as they set the stage of their game.

What is it that we want our players to feel? 

Generally, players come to the table with some excitement about what they are about to experience. However, if they’re like me, this is also mixed with a little bit of trepidation. (Excitement and anxiety have many of the same symptoms.) As game masters, we can do some things to help our players feel less like strangers. Whether these players will ever play a game together again does not matter. For the few hours that they are at your table, they need to act as a team. So, you will want to practice some team building. This will emphasize their excitement. 

As a high school teacher, when I get a new group of teenagers together, one of the first things that I want to do is to help them to feel comfortable with each other. They are going to spend many hours together and so they need to work together (just like a gaming group). Small activities can help to break down walls and make the other people at the table feel more real. With the shortness of a gaming convention timeslot, we need to do this as quickly as we can. A couple of things that you could possibly do are as follows: 

1. At the very least, have players introduce themselves by giving their name and their experience with the game they are about to play. As the game master, start first and start the ball rolling. This is your first chance to share your excitement for the game. 

2. Additionally, you might have players share something about something they enjoy that is not related to gaming. For example, you might have them share their favorite food or a favorite place they’ve ever been or would like to go (you can find a list of great icebreaker questions here). As players open up about themselves in a safe way, this will also help you as a game master to see how players interact with each other. This might also help the players learn how to best interact with each other. 

3. If appropriate, you may even say turn to your neighbor and give them a high-five or a fist bump as they introduce themselves. It is pretty amazing how a little bit of physical connection helps people to connect socially. 

4. We come to the table to roll dice, so perhaps you can do something with that. You might say we’re all going to roll dice and that the one who rolls the highest will introduce themselves first. This gets them into a game-playing mood and it also gives you a little sense of order on how the group will make the introductions.

During these initial get-to-know-you exercises, the GM should remain aware of what is going on with the players. This is not the time to be reviewing your notes. You need to watch your players and note how they act interact initially. What is the tone that they use? How do they speak–softly or loudly, confidently or quietly (might you need to re-arrange where people sit at the table)? How do they use nonverbal communication; such as moving their hands or their use of facial expressions? GMs might even take a few actual notes behind their screen to remind themselves of what they learned during these initial moments. You might be able to use this later as you interact with them during the game and help them feel like the game was personalized for them. 

Observation is also a social skill and it does not stop when the introductions conclude. Throughout the game, look for the same things: nonverbal and verbal behaviors. Watch to see what the players seem to be enjoying. As you do that, you might choose to include more of those kinds of interactions in your game. Recognizing and incorporating these encounters in your game will make it a more enjoyable experience for your players. 

Dealing with Discomfort

Conversely, you will want to watch out for what types of interactions close players down. If the behavior of other players causes a player to interact less, then you might see what you can do to limit that type of behavior. This is a difficult tightrope to walk because you do not want to diminish the behavior of the first player. Instead, reward behaviors that help every player to have a good time at the table. 

Often players are difficult to read. They might not open up much about what they’re feeling. They might be quieter or just enjoy watching the game. When this is the case, you might not be able to figure them out and their needs. If that is the case, don’t beat yourself up. It’s okay. Just keep moving on with your game and learn what you can. If you are making an effort to include them and let them know they are important, then you will both have a great game. 

Now you do want to know what things make players uncomfortable. There are two common ways that game masters can overtly ask about these things. The first method is called Lines and Veils. Mike Shea does a good job of explaining the concept of lines and veils in his games. But in a nutshell, you ask your players to share the kinds of things that make them uncomfortable in the game. Lines are subjects that should not be mentioned; that is, lines not to be crossed. Veils represent those topics that could be described as occurring offscreen. The players will not interact with those topics, but the fact that they did happen can be mentioned.  There are many checklists that you can use to figure out which kind of issues might trigger someone, and therefore prepare yourself in advance to make sure that you avoid those situations. You might even use these checklists to help you create a list of things that could happen in your specific game. The last thing that we really want to do is to offend those with whom we play, so if we can figure it out beforehand, that will save us a lot of grief in the end.
However, you might miss something that makes your players uncomfortable. The second method–using an X-Card–helps when you inadvertently miss a sensitive topic. Start by giving each player a card with the letter X written boldly across its face. If a situation arises that makes them truly uncomfortable then all the player needs to do is slide the card onto the table to show their discomfort. At this point, you will stop the game and take a second to communicate with the player. What is it that is making them feel uncomfortable? You might ask if this topic is a line (a topic to be avoided) or a veil (handled off-stage).

First Conclusion

Any game master who focuses on helping their players have a good time will find success in game mastering. This first skill emphasized helping the players meet each other and also give the GM an opportunity to start figuring out the players. But GMs also have to identify things that might distract from the fun of the game, so they need to familiarize themselves with the concepts of “lines and veils” and the X-card.

Part Two of The Three Golden Skills of Convention Game Mastering

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Picture: Midjourney